[IMC-UK-Features] Server Seizure: Press Release and other stuff

[ionnek]

Hi features and process

people have been quite busy on irc and mail again. The text about the server
seizure I sent here yesterday has morphed into an extension of the current
server seizure feature, and into a press release, which is attached as a word
document and pasted in at the end of this mail. Many people participated in the
ad-hoc press group, in addition to irc indymedia regulars also people like me,
who has been away for a long time, or Lee, who has participated in protecting
the indymedia uk infrastructure in the past and is doing it now again (see his
quote in the feature).

The press release went through many stages of drafting and re-drafting, in order
to reflect how the current situation is seen in the imc uk collectives. For
example, we discussed using the terms "citizen journalism" and "democratic
platform", but decided against it, because indymedia uk has rarely if ever
described itself with these terms - although it has been described in this way
by others. Please check it.

Also, people are working on a Info- or Resource page about this latest server
seizure, similar to what was done at the Bristol Server Seizure (see link
below). This happens on we.riseup.net, since docs is down.

If anyone wants to join in, come to the #uk channel, have a look at the UK
Indymedia Group on we.riseup.net (https://we.riseup.net/imc-uk), and see what
you can do. People are needed to activate contacts in the media and advocacy
organisations, and send info out, and to find new server space (and money), and
whats more important, to think about ways to prevent a situation where we loose
our servers 3 times in just over 4 years.

It doesnt seem to have affected the UK site much this time, but the indymedia
documentation project is still down, and for the new London indymedia site, it
was rather bad to be down for hours again.

On a more optimistic note, its great to see how fast the feature was translated
by other IMCs, and people from other imcs kept popping up in irc to help.

best
ionnek

-------Press Release------

Independent Media Centre UK Press Release 26.01.2009
For immediate release
Indymedia Server Raided by UK Police
Issued by: IMC UK Press Group

ON 22 January 2009, KENT POLICE seized an INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE server hosted
by MANCHESTER-based company, UK GRID, in relation to a comment published on the
news web site.

The raid in which the server was seized is an attack on free speech and
independent journalism in the UK, and especially on the grassroots
open-publishing platform that is Indymedia.

In the morning of the 22nd, KENT POLICE emailed Indymedia UK requesting that
personal information about Justice Neil Butterfield, the judge overseeing the
STOP HUNTINGDON ANIMAL CRUELTY (SHAC) trial, be removed from a comment to a
report published on the Indymedia website and that details of the poster be
retained.

Indymedia UK volunteers had already removed the information from the report in
line with the project’s own privacy policy. Indymedia UK was unable to comply
with Kent Police's request to retain data relating to poster. As an open
publishing project, Indymedia UK does not keep logs of the server activity.

Nevertheless, Police seized the machine which was handed over by the management
of UK Grid. No search warrant was shown.

The loss of a server represents serious damage to the Indymedia infrastructure
in the UK.

Several websites including the global Indymedia documentation project, the new
website of Indymedia London, la Soja Mata (an anti-GM soya campaign focusing on
South American development), Transition Sheffield and a Canadian campaign
against the 2010 olympics were affected.

Background:

The present case is not the first time that Indymedia servers were seized in the
UK. Shortly before the opening of the European Social Forum in 2004 in London,
a main Indymedia server was seized from the hosting company Rackspace in an
operation which involved an Italian Judge, an American District Court and the
FBI.

In 2005, the server of Indymedia Bristol was seized under a search warrant. One
Indymedia Bristol volunteer was arrested on suspicion of incitement to criminal
damage, but was never charged.

As in previous cases, Indymedia UK stayed online this time. This was possible
due to a system of 'mirrors', which was set up to protect the technical
infrastructure of the alternative media project. Despite the resource intensive
interruptions caused by server seizures, the independent media activists
continue to provide a platform for "news straight from the streets".

Contact:
Imc-uk-contact at lists.indymedia.org

Further information:

2009 Indymedia Server seizure, Indymedia UK
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419838....

Summary of the Responses to the 2004 Indymedia Server Seizure by Electronic
Frontier Foundation
www.eff.org/cases/indymedia-server-take...

Responses to the 2004 Indymedia Server Seizure, Indymedia UK
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/11/300886....

About the 2005 Bristol Indymedia Server Seizure, Indymedia UK
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/315177....








-- 
"Some people misunderstand their local right of ``freedom of speech'' to mean
that they have a legal right to use others' computers to say what they wish in
whatever way they wish, and the owners of said computers have no right to stop
them. Those people are wrong." (Brandon Kehoe)
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